Thursday, July 25, 2013

Sólyom, not to be confused with ShalomThis really cracks me up. There is a new airline coming to Budapest wanting to be the flagship carrier that replaces Malev, the Hungarian airline that went landing gear up. Today, there was an article on the progress of this airline in one of the ex-pat online services. This is really not news for anyone who follows the Hungarian news via English portals, which there are many. I have been following this airline development for some time now.So Sólyom has been in the planning stages for quite some time in the public area, but most likely much longer on the drawing board. A week ago, the CEO of Wizz Air stated in an interview this was not a good time for a new airline to start out of the boarding gate. Besides the economy, he pointed out that airline fuel was at an all-time high here in Europe, the Hungarian forint is fighting the Euro, and the cost of leasing planes makes it prohibitive to have enough routes not to consider the fact that there will be considerable losses that will take decades to recoup.Though they are propelling the notion that the airlines is more Hungarian than the seven tribesmen, when push comes to shove, the news reports “A tourism enterprise registered in Muscat, the capital of the Sultanate of Oman is a minority owner in the airline. A well-capitalized investor with extensive international relations, registered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, provides additional financial resources necessary for the development of the airline.”How Hungarian can you get? For a real belly laugh, I read the comments on FB after the full most recent article was posted.